


A New Beginning

by amyfortuna



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Backstory: River Song, F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Last time this happened, I woke up as a toddler. In New York." Spoilers for <i>The Angels Take Manhattan</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Beginning

The golden light fades into darkness. She is alone and cold, wrapped in clothes several sizes too large. Her mind is a girl of eight years old, but her body is the age of a two-year-old and she has all the reactions and urges of a toddler. 

Of course she starts crying. Huddled in a tiny ball in a dark alleyway, she screams and cries as the cold seeps through the coat. Before long, though, she can’t move for cold; she feels a strange lethargy taking over. She closes her eyes and sobs quietly now, missing the hurried footsteps that approach. 

“Melody,” a voice whispers, and she lifts her head. She opens her eyes as her tiny body is gathered up into warm arms, and stares straight into the face of an angel with red hair. 

She’s wrapped in a warm blanket, and carried away to a warm room, where she is given appropriate food slowly and carefully. She swallows gratefully, looking around at the warm place, lighted with soft yellow light and a fire on the hearth. It is a cozy place, a home that had clearly been lived in for some time. The angel with red hair sits next to her on the sofa and spoon-feeds her delicious things. Another angel - a man with short blond hair - is fussing over her, making sure she’s warm, a green box that says ‘First Aid’ next to him. 

“She’s just regenerated; she’s perfectly healthy, Amy,” the man says, gently caressing Melody’s hair. “I can’t believe we found her. Our little girl.” 

Amy the red-haired angel presses a kiss to Melody’s head. “We know what we’ve got to do, Rory,” she says to the man. Then she turns to Melody. “Hello, sweetie,” she says. “You’re our little girl, and you have the ability to suspend growing up for a while. We want you to do that now. You have to stay younger than three years old for the next twenty years. You can do this, you know how, baby.” 

Melody feels something shift in her mind and she reaches out with her thoughts and changes something, shifts something just slightly. She curls herself against Amy and feels the warmth of Rory’s arm around her. Surrounded by their love, warmer than blankets and hearthfires, she drifts off to sleep. 

She awakens to find herself in a small bed. Sunlight is coming in through a window and there are toys and stuffed animals neatly stacked in the room. She looks around at everything and just knows this room belongs to her. She can smell the cozy scent of fresh-baked bread and she can hear Amy and Rory talking faintly in the distance. A door shuts, and then Amy’s footsteps can be heard, coming down the hall. 

“Good morning, baby,” she says, kneeling down next to Melody’s bed, and reaching out a hand to stroke her hair. “You’re safe now. We’ll make sure you’re safe now.”

\---

It’s July 17th, 1990, and she’s travelling. She’s spent so long with Amy and Rory. Amy’s red hair has turned grey, and Rory’s forehead has lines in it now that never go away, but Melody has stayed exactly the same small toddler that they found so many years ago. They’re mistaken for her grandparents now rather than her parents. It’s time, Amy’s been saying that, and Melody isn’t sure what that means. She’s on a plane, flying high over the ocean. They’re at a huge airport, then they’re driving out into the countryside, to a small village. Melody catches sight of a sign - Leadworth - then Amy’s getting her out of the car. 

The middle-aged couple standing in front of her have kind faces. Amy says their name ‘Zucker’ and it feels like a nice word. 

“Once we retired, Mickey wanted to get out into the country rather than staying in London, so we bought a house out here.” The lady was talking to Amy. 

“It’s a lovely village,” Amy was saying. “Rory and I grew up here, but we had better prospects in America, considering my career as a travel writer.”

“We have one of your travel guides, don’t we, Martha?” the man says. 

“I loved your guide to Provence,” Martha says to Amy. “The way you talk about Vincent Van Gogh, it’s like you actually met him.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “I’ve heard of that happening, you know. I once met Shakespeare.”

Amy laughs. “You did not!” 

Martha nods firmly. “And, he hit on me!” 

“Now that, I believe,” Amy says. “Well, here’s my little girl, Melody Pond.” 

Martha took Melody by the hand and knelt down to be at her level. “Hi, Melody Zucker. Welcome home.” She picked Melody up and they all went inside. 

Long after she went to bed that evening, Melody could hear the four of them talking well into the evening. They sounded happy, reminiscing, full of laughter. It was very late at night when she heard Amy creeping into the room. 

“What you will be, Melody,” she says softly, finally, with a voice that sounds like it’s filled with tears, “is very, very brave.” 

\---

It’s so many years later for Melody. She’s been River Song for decades, she was growing up as Melody Zucker for twenty years, and before that everything fades into fragile toddler memories. River isn’t sure what happened in those twenty years between her first regeneration and meeting her adopted parents, Mickey and Martha Zucker, who had been very good to her, but unable to keep her psychopathic side in check. 

But when Amy’s in the graveyard, asking if she can go to Rory, if the Angel’s her best chance, a faint memory flickers back in River’s mind - the face of an angel with red hair, and a warm smile like sunshine. And she knows this isn’t the end for Rory and Amy. 

This is a new beginning.


End file.
